Hundreds of schoolchildren were abducted by gunmen from a school in Nigeria

Dozens of armed men broke into the dormitories of a school in northwestern Nigeria the day before yesterday, a teacher from this institution and a relative told “Agence France” yesterday (Friday). This raises fears of a new mass kidnapping operation in the region.
“More than 300 girls are still missing after listing the remaining students,” a teacher in Djingibi, Zamfara state, told Agence France Presse, asking not to be identified.
He said the attack occurred around one o’clock at night (midnight GMT), but did not confirm the number of students who were present at the school at the time of the attack.
Armed criminal gangs scattered across northwestern and central Nigeria have stepped up their attacks in recent years, including kidnapping for ransom, rape and looting.
Last week, a gang kidnapped 42 people from a school in the neighboring state of Niger.
Last December, more than 300 children were abducted from a school in Kankara, the birthplace of President Muhammadu Buhari in Katsina state, while visiting the area. The children were later released, but the incident sparked anger and was reminiscent of the kidnapping of girls in Dabashi and Chibok by jihadists. What shocked the world. A relative told AFP that he had received a call about the recent incident in the state of Zamfara. “I’m on the road by my side,” Saadi Kawai said. He added: “I received a call to inform me that bandits have kidnapped students and I have two daughters at that school.” Police have yet to confirm the incident. The kidnappings represent one of the security challenges facing Africa’s most populous country, as rebels launch jihadist operations in the northeast and ethnic tensions shake some southern regions. The north-western and central regions of Nigeria have increasingly become a stronghold for large criminal groups attacking villages, killing and abducting citizens, and looting and burning their homes. These criminal gangs often hide in camps in the Rojo Forest, which spans four states in northern and central Nigeria: Katsina, Zamfara, Kaduna, and Niger.
The Nigerian Armed Forces have been deployed in that area, but attacks and mass kidnappings continue.
These criminal gangs are driven by greed, but some have forged strong ties to jihadist groups in the Northeast. This criminal violence has killed more than 8,000 people since 2011 and forced more than 200,000 residents of the region to flee their homes, according to an International Crisis Group report published in May 2020. More than a decade of insurgency has resulted in the Deaths. More than 30 thousand people, and it spread to neighboring Niger, Chad and Cameroon.